Are You Raising a Leader?

The business world is full of books, articles and how-to's on developing leadership skills. Clearly, good leaders are in demand by organizations around the world. Of course, it's more than just a business need. Our police and firefighters need strong leaders. Our cities, states and our nation need strong leaders.

Then, why aren't we spending more time developing leadership skills in our kids?

One of the great incubators of leadership has always been sports. For many, the lessons of hard work, overcoming challenges and learning to mesh as a team were learned on the field of play. Those are great lessons for everyone, but they are the building blocks of leadership. Drawing on those lessons, some feel confident enough to act decisively and rally those around them – demonstrating the traits of a leader.

For several years now I have heard many high school baseball coaches bemoan the lack of take-charge players on their teams. In fact, I heard it so often, I had to ask myself, what is it that's so different from a generation or two ago? While it seems the answer is "everything", I’ve landed on something very specific in today’s youth sports landscape that I believe is, at least, partly responsible.

In 2022, the majority of 10 – 14 year olds never play in a ball game that isn't run by grown-ups. Today's children only know baseball and softball environments where adults constantly give orders and direction. But, with coaches and parents yelling instructions on every pitch, our kids don’t learn to think for themselves and react instinctively, using skills they learned in practice. Rather, without realizing it, we train our players to listen for and wait for instructions.

And, it’s not just the ballgames themselves that are an issue. In many ways, our children are taught that the adults will take care of everything. Often I see mothers carry their perfectly-capable kid’s equipment bag into our academy. Many times I’ve had a player blame their parent for him not having his glove at camp because “dad didn’t put it in my bag”. Teenagers have no idea when their next ballgame is unless mom or dad tells them.

Sports psychologist and 50-year baseball coach, David Udelf, once said to me, “kids today aren’t even leading themselves, how can we expect them to be able to lead others?” By denying them the opportunities to stand on their own two feet, we are not only preventing them from finding their leadership legs, we are unwittingly creating a generation of followers.

Why do we constantly yell instructions during games? We don’t want our kids and our kids’ team to fail. It’s noble, but it’s wrong. Failure is the greatest teacher there is. Failure teaches us resilience, how to pick ourselves back up and keep going. Ultimately we learn not to fear failure, which is a trait good leaders all share.

In the 1960s and 70s, when I grew up, spring and summer meant all baseball, all the time. Sure, we played organized little league, but for every game coached and umpired by adults, we probably played five to ten pick-up or “sandlot” games in the park. In other words, we spent the majority of our time playing baseball completely unsupervised. In that environment children learned to be self-sufficient and leaders emerged naturally.

In those days, the little league and high school coaches enjoyed the luxury of having leaders on their teams – the very same kids who were the leaders on the sandlot.

Today, of course, kids don't play much by themselves because parents are uncomfortable letting them go to the park alone and because technology lets them have fun just sitting on the sofa. Now it's up to parents and coaches to do what the sandlot used to do for us: find the leaders and bring them out of the pack. (It’s why Bash started doing Sandlot six years ago, but it’s only one morning a week and our kids need far more opportunities to become leaders.)

Here's the best part. If you’re a coach, building leaders does not require more work for you. It actually requires you to do less.

Find opportunities to step back and make the kids step up. Have a couple of players lead warm-ups before practices and games, while you walk away to make out the line-up. Find a couple of players who tend to speak up more or are well-liked by teammates and give them the mantle of "captain." Or rotate kids throughout the year to be captains. Then give the captains some responsibilities commensurate with their age.

I know this is bordering on sacrilegious, but try not to coach so much during games. Teach your players to yell out the number of outs to each other without you prompting them. Or to yell out where the play should go when the ball is hit. Remind them early in the season and you’ll find the kids will do it on their own as time goes by. Best of all, you’ll find certain players who like to yell more than others. Those kids are good leader candidates.

Each coach is capable of finding your own ways to create leaders within your team. I am simply urging you to think about the importance of doing that. To give that as much weight as teaching them the skills of the sport. Keep it in mind as you plan practices and as you think of your players' development.

As a parent, resist the temptation to protect your child from failure. There are plenty of times when failure won’t be catastrophic and the learning that comes from it will be very valuable. Let sports do its job and give your child the gift of succeeding or failing on his or her own.

If we make developing our players' leadership skills as important as developing their baseball or softball skills, high school coaches won't be the only ones thanking us. After all, your kid has a better chance of becoming a CEO or a police commander than a professional ballplayer. Our world needs more good leaders. Give your child a better chance of being one of them.